 |
fondly[|fɑ:ndli]애정을 듬뿍담고
'Old friend '
Articles in this series are examining the promises and challenges that China faces as it tries to educate its citizens more broadly.
2013년 6월 27일 목요일
Park ready to charm China
2013년 6월 18일 화요일
Faltering Economy in China Dims Job Prospects for Graduates
Faltering Economy in China Dims Job Prospects for Graduates
faltering 비틀거리는,
Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
A job fair last month at Minzu University of China in Beijing. Companies have limited positions to offer graduating seniors.
By KEITH BRADSHER and SUE-LIN WONG
Published: June 16, 2013
The Education RevolutionHONG KONG — A record seven million students will graduate from universities and colleges across China in the coming weeks, but their job prospects appear bleak — the latest sign of a troubled Chinese economy.
*bleak 절망적인
Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
A student interviewing at a job fair at Minzu University of China. The class of 2013 has seven million graduates, a record.
Businesses say they are swamped with job applications but have few positions to offer as economic growth has begun to falter. Twitter-like microblogging sites in China are full of laments from graduates with dim prospects.
*swamp 눈코뜰새없이 바쁜/ lament 한탄하다
*swamp 눈코뜰새없이 바쁜/ lament 한탄하다
The Chinese government is worried, saying that the problem could affect social stability, and it has ordered schools, government agencies and state-owned enterprises to hire more graduates at least temporarily to help relieve joblessness. “The only thing that worries them more than an unemployed low-skilled person is an unemployed educated person,” said Shang-Jin Wei, a Columbia Business School economist.
Lu Mai, the secretary general of the elite, government-backed China Development Research Foundation, acknowledged in a speech this month that less than half of this year’s graduates had found jobs so far.
Graduating seniors at all but a few of China’s top universities say that very few people they know are finding jobs — and that those who did receive offers over the winter were seeing them rescinded as the economy has weakened in recent weeks.
*rescind 해지하다. 폐지하다
*rescind 해지하다. 폐지하다
“Many companies are not expanding at all, while some of my classmates have been hired and fired in the same month when the companies realized that they could not afford the salaries after all,” said Yan Shuang, a graduating senior in labor and human resources at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
Ms. Yan said she had been promised a job at a sports clothing company over the winter. But the company canceled all hiring plans in March as the economy weakened.
China quadrupled the number of students enrolled in universities and colleges over the last decade. But its economy is still driven by manufacturing, with a preponderance of blue-collar jobs. Prime Minister Li Keqiang personally led the cabinet meeting, on May 16, that produced the directive for schools, government agencies and state-owned enterprises to hire more graduates, a strategy that has been used with increasing frequency in recent years to absorb jobless but educated youths.
*quadruple 네배가 되게 만들다/ preponderance 우세한(더많음)
cabinet meeting 각료회의/ absorb 흡수하다. 받아들이다.
*quadruple 네배가 되게 만들다/ preponderance 우세한(더많음)
cabinet meeting 각료회의/ absorb 흡수하다. 받아들이다.
“Any country with an expanding middle class and a rising number of unemployed graduates is in for trouble,” said Gerard A. Postiglione, the director of the Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China at Hong Kong University.
A national survey released last winter found that in the age bracket of 21- to 25-year-olds, 16 percent of the men and women with college degrees were unemployed.
*bracket 계층, 연령대
*bracket 계층, 연령대
But only 4 percent of those with an elementary school education were unemployed, a sign of voracious corporate demand persisting for blue-collar workers. Wages for workers who have come in from rural areas to urban factories have surged 70 percent in the last four years; wages for young people in white-collar sectors have barely stayed steady or have even declined.
Economists have long estimated that the Chinese economy needs to grow 7 or 8 percent annually to avoid large-scale unemployment. But that rule of thumb has become less reliable in recent years as the labor market has split.
*rule of thumb (엄지손가락의 법칙) 주먹구구식의, 대충 어림잡아, (정확한 통계에 따르지 않고)
*rule of thumb (엄지손가락의 법칙) 주먹구구식의, 대충 어림잡아, (정확한 통계에 따르지 않고)
Relatively slow growth is still creating enough jobs to provide full employment for the country’s blue-collar workers. But much faster growth may be needed to create white-collar jobs for the graduates pouring out of universities.
The International Monetary Fund predicts the Chinese economy will grow 7.75 percent this year — slower than the growth of 10 to 14 percent before 2008, but still a much faster pace than in the West. The main problem for China lies in the sheer growth in graduates; the United States produces three million graduates a year, while China has increased its annual number of graduates by more than five million in a single decade.
One response, endorsed by the State Council, is to urge more graduates to take jobs at small, private companies. But a generation of people who grew up under the government’s “one child” policy has proved risk-averse and slow to join or set up new companies.
The Education Revolution
Articles in this series are examining the promises and challenges that China faces as it tries to educate its citizens more broadly.
“I would not work for private companies, that is not secure — only state-owned ones,” Ms. Yan said.
Many graduating seniors, seeing limited job opportunities, are applying to the country’s fast-expanding graduate schools. Yang Yi, a senior majoring in applied economics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that after applying unsuccessfully for jobs through the winter, he was prepared to seek a master’s degree.
“Hopefully the economy will have recovered when I graduate in two years,” he said. “Getting a master’s degree is always better than working in small companies that might not even last long.”
Chinese students have been gravitating toward majors that are perceived as academically less demanding but likely to lead to careers in banking. Business administration and economics majors have proliferated, partly because the country’s many new private universities find them inexpensive subjects to teach. Programs in engineering and other sciences, with their requirements for costly labs, have grown more slowly.
*gravitate (toward)~에 끌리다./ proliferate 급증하다.
*gravitate (toward)~에 끌리다./ proliferate 급증하다.
As in the West in recent years, financial services is an extremely popular field among college graduates, who besiege banks, brokerage firms and other businesses in the sector with job applications. Ministry of Human Resources statistics show that average pay for banking sector employees, at $14,500 a year, is twice the level of pay in sectors like health care and education.
*besiege 포위하다. 에워싸다.
*besiege 포위하다. 에워싸다.
Graduates from the best universities still have a strong chance of finding a job, particularly if they do not set their sights too high. Lin Yinbi, a senior graduating in trade and economics from the prestigious Renmin University in Beijing, said that he had job offers from a heating company and a supermarket chain, but was still applying for a well-paid bank job.
“The question is, What kind of job is it?” he said. “Does it align with our major? Does it pay enough? Do we have room to grow?”
Wang Zhian, a prominent Chinese broadcaster whose microblog has more than 200,000 followers, created a stir this spring by recommending that college graduates take jobs packing and unpacking homes for moving companies.
*prominent 유명한
*prominent 유명한
“The most important thing for graduating seniors is to figure out a way to survive, and if that means you have to become a moving company worker, then so be it,” he said. “You can’t live off your parents forever.”
2013년 6월 5일 수요일
Mainland Chinese Consumers Are Buying Rice And Daily Necessities As Well As Luxury Goods In Hong Kong
출처:http://www.ibtimes.com/mainland-chinese-consumers-are-buying-rice-daily-necessities-well-luxury-goods-hong-kong-1284727
China’s mainlanders have always shopped for luxury goods in Hong Kong, owing to the special administrative region’s lower taxes, but lately, discouraged by news of rampant counterfeit productions from rice and meat to condoms, mainlanders are now buying groceries and other daily essentials in Hong Kong as well.
*rampant 만연하는
*counterfeit 모조의
Shopping in Hong Kong is now nearly a part of some shoppers’ daily routine, according to Yahoo News, because mainlanders simply do not have faith in products made in China anymore. Condoms and sanitary products are now on mainlanders' shopping lists, a pharmacist in the Sheung Shui area of Hong Kong said. A grocer in the same area identified by his last name, Wang, said, 70 percent of the grocery store’s profit comes from mainland shoppers.
*sanitary 위생의
A couple surnamed Zheng from the city of Foshan, in Hong Kong’s neighboring Guangdong province, said they come to Hong Kong regularly to shop and spend nearly 10,000 yuan ($1,631.14) every time.
Depending on where shoppers come from, a trip to Hong Kong could take as little as a few hours on a bus or a train from Shenzhen, a city in Guangdong. Shoppers from farther inland usually have to fly to Hong Kong.
“There is a lot of counterfeit medicine in the mainland, who knows what will happen to you if you eat them?” the couple added.
The most popular item, however, is rice. With China’s cadmium rice scandal, this staple in the Chinese diet has become dangerous. Hong Kong has regulated that each shopper is only allowed to take 15 kilograms (33 lbs) of rice out of Hong Kong. Violators are fined HK$6,400 ($824.35). That wouldn’t stop smugglers though, who are now paying women HK$80 to bring rice into the mainland, which they then sell for a higher price.
*violator 위반자 / smuggler 밀수자
Mainland shoppers’ old favorite, luxury goods, are still in high demand. Two mainland shoppers were seen towing 20 brand-name handbags away, according to Yahoo News.
“Hong Kong’s luxury stores carry more variety. In addition, luxury goods are heavily taxed in the mainland, making them more expensive, that’s why we choose to shop in Hong Kong,” a male shopper, identified by his last name Li, from the coastal city of Suzhou said.
Mainland China levies a 17 percent tax on all luxury goods, whereas Hong Kong levies no import taxes on most luxury goods, making it much cheaper to make large purchases in Hong Kong.
*levy 추가징수(하다)
Mainland consumers may be spending a lot overseas, but they are not indiscriminate in where their money goes.
*indiscriminate 무분별한
“It’s not as good to shop in Hong Kong. Most salespeople are very impatient,” a mainland shopper surnamed Li said, according to Hexun, a Chinese financial news portal. Some shoppers also said that when the salespeople realize they are from the mainland, they will try to sell them impractical, pricey items.
“Luxury goods in Singapore and South Korea are cheaper than they are in Hong Kong now,” a travel agent surnamed Qin said, according to Hexun. “Many mainland shoppers are going to those countries instead.”
2013년 5월 22일 수요일
The middle-class trap
World-watchers say China's expanding middle class will become the most influential bloc on this planet very soon. But in the meantime, they are the ones who have to struggle most with new expectations, higher benchmarks and also battle ingrained lifestyle traditions. Liu Wei takes a closer look.
*ingrained 습관이 몸에 밴
Han Lin has not spoken to his father in two months. Part of the reason is the old man wants to take his 1-year-old granddaughter back to Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, so he can look after her better, but the city is a four-hour train ride away from Beijing, and his son had flatly refused. While the situation may be unfamiliar to people living in the United States or United Kingdom, Han's dilemma is very common in China, especially among the growing numbers of the so-called middle class. And this is only one problem they face.
*flatly 단호하게
A recent report by The Times of London describes the Chinese middle class as "on their way to becoming the most powerful social bloc on the planet". The Wall Street Journal quoted statistics from McKinsey & Co, which defines this group as those with annual disposable incomes of between $16,000 and $34,000.
Han, an IT engineer with a US company, and his wife Qian Jin, an accountant in a private domestic enterprise, were startled at the suggestion that they fitted into this category.
"Middle class? Call me middle-class when I have at least two houses and a Beijing hukou," says Qian. A hukou is a permanent household registration in the city, which allows the resident full privileges in housing, education and health services.
 |
Han Lin, his wife Qian Jin (left), with their daughter and mother share happy times in their Beijing home. Feng Yongbin / China Daily
|
Housing has become the most important issue for most urban Chinese families, closely followed by their children's education.
The price of a 100-square-meter apartment around Beijing's Third Ring Road, about 10 km from the city center, has risen to four times its price in 2005.
Han, 32, bought his 90-square-meter apartment in 2008.
His suburban community has no major hospital or shopping mall, and he drives an hour each day to his job in the city center. Yet, he considers the house his wisest investment in Beijing. He bought it for about 900,000 yuan ($124,000) in 2008, and now property agents offer him 2 million yuan for it.
"I am quite lucky compared to many of my age," he says. "Our parents had some savings and they were generous in their support, or else my life in Beijing would have been totally different. It would have been a lot more stressful."
Han and Qian lived with his parents for about three months after their baby was born. When they had to go back to work, they asked their parents to Beijing to help. A good baby sitter would have cost at least 4,000 yuan a month.
With five people under one roof, their apartment started to feel a little cramped.There was also a growing problem: There were no good kindergartens or elementary schools in the community. They could send their child to a private school, but tuition fees and peer pressure worried them.
*cramped 비좁은
Han frets that perhaps his child would be ashamed that he drove a Buick while the other children were being chauffeured home in Porsches or BMWs.
*fret 초조하게 하다.
Some of his neighbors sold their 100-square-meter houses to buy a 40-square-meter apartment downtown so they had access to better schools.
Many had taken even more drastic measures. Qian says at least five of her colleagues had left Beijing in the last two years because they cannot afford a house in the city.
"The obsession of owning your own house is overwhelming," she says. "If someone is over 30 and still live in a rental house, he is just labeled as not successful."
She says there are even some who fake a divorce so they can buy a second house, referring to the strict regulations that now govern the purchase and ownership of a second property that Beijing and some other major cities have imposed to cool the real estate market.
*imposed 겹처진
Policy dictates that residents without a Beijing hukou cannot buy more than one house.
Although their current accommodation is getting crowded, Han and Qian is postponing plans to buy a bigger house.
Like most people their age in China, they are the only child in their respective families. They need to take care of four elderly parents with increasingly fragile health - at least until the country's health and social welfare system can ensure that every old person can be decently looked after.
They also need to save for their child.
페이지 2
Even milk money is a heavy expenditure. They currently feed their baby an imported milk powder from Germany, and the price of the brand has been swinging upward as demand increases in tandem with falling confidence in domestic dairy products after safety-issue scandals.
Han's father had suggested bringing the child back to Xuzhou, their hometown, arguing that the grandparents can look after the baby better, and that the cost of living would be lower. The grandfather also thinks that chances in finding a good school will be better.
Han finds that decision too hard to make.
"How much money the Chinese middle class earns is much easier to measure than how happy they are," notes Zhou Xiaozheng, sociology professor at Renmin University.
"Fancy as their jobs, cars or houses may be, the pressures are enormous. They do not enjoy the benefits of the upper class, and they share the same worries of the lower classes including food safety for their children, education and the stress to succeed."
Bei Bei is single, has a Beijing hukou, three houses and fits exactly into Qian's definition of being "middle class", but the 35-year-old has her own angst.
*angst 불안 고뇌
Born and raised in Beijing, the owner of a technology company lives in a 190-square-meter house in central Beijing, and has two more she rents out. She has two cars: a Land Rover and a BMW.
Her definition of being middle-class goes beyond the material possessions.
"In my opinion, being middle class means having quality of life and good taste for beauty and art," she says.
Bei tries to live up to this standard by going to the gym four times a week, collecting art and traveling abroad at least three times a year. Unfortunately, she finds some basic elements of life such as clean air, water and safe food beyond her.
To compensate, she buys organic food, imported milk and bottled water, and has two Swedish-made air purifiers working in her house, and that of her parents.
Bei got divorced two years ago. Being single again at 35 does not bother her, although being misunderstood by her friends does.
"I think I am leading a pretty cool life, but they think I am just putting on a brave face." The issue is finding the right partner.
"Men my age who are equally sound financially tend to choose younger women," she says. "I must say people today are living a more improved life, and they are much more open to life choices than in my parents' era. But, some fundamental changes need time."
She illustrates her point by citing her traveling experiences.
In her three trips abroad every year, she always travels business class, but not all her boyfriends have taken to that very well.
"Oddly enough, I cannot pay for them, because that will bruise their egos even more," she laughs.
*bruise 의기소침하게 하다.
Han and his wife and Bei all agree on one thing though, and that is China's middle class needs to be more committed to society and community.
Han uses Weibo to post his opinions on inflation and air pollution, and Bei practices a strict moral bottom line in doing business.
"I will not deceive my clients with lame products, even if some people may be earning more money by doing so," she says.
*deceive 속이다. 기만하다
Professor Zhou of Renmin University expects even more from the Chinese middle class, estimated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to take up about 40 percent of China's population by 2020.
"The Chinese middle class struggles between tradition and rapid social changes," he says.
"They yearn for a better sense of stability and security when growing their wealth. I believe that with their education and insight they will play a significant role, and their voices on social causes will get louder as they grow more and more numerous."
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/19/content_16509767.htm
피드 구독하기:
글 (Atom)